Atlanta Braves: How long was Jorge Soler’s World Series homer?

Where Did It Go?  Did Anybody Care?

It was inevitable that someone would eventually find that baseball.  It was, in fact, still in Houston, though there was speculation it might be anywhere between Woodland Heights (NW Houston) and Austin… or still orbiting the planet in a manner that might require satellites to adjust their own paths.

But there is someone who claims to have the ball, and the letter describing how he obtained it is interesting in its detail.

Normally, special souvenir game momentoes (balls, bats, etc.) are authenticated on the spot by a small army of team employees who are deployed around the ballpark exactly for this kind of reason… making sure that the relic is what it purports to be.

We learned some of this thanks to an interview our Kyle Walter conducted with the head authenticator of the Miami Marlins last year… a fascinating look at how this little-known job gets done.

In this case… Jorge Soler didn’t give any of the Astros’ authenticators a chance to execute their service since the ball was literally put out of their reach… and everyone else’s.

That brings us to Manuel Ramos IV.

Manuel and his brother Richard were trying to watch the game from a 6th-floor balcony in the apartments at 500 Crawford Street.  Their view was quite a ways from the action, but at 60+ feet above the street, they did have an angle beyond left field thanks to the open roof.

In his letter describing the process of getting the baseball, Manuel notes seeing the flight of the ball leaving the stadium, striking “an awning outside” and then rolling to a stop on the sidewalk along Crawford Street.

Nobody went for it.  Finally, after “approximately eight minutes” Manuel decided he ought to take action and ran down the stairs to snag his prize… a ball that he thinks should be worth… well, at least $36,603 since the current auction bid is at that level while not yet reaching his reserve price.

But I’m not interested in the price of that baseball today… I just want to know how far it traveled.  We might just have enough info to figure that out.